~ Gathering the pieces of our lives together under the eyes of the Holy

Tag Archives: trust

“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” sings Bess in Gershwin’s opera, “Porgy and Bess.” But my summer is not proving to be that easy this year; between an overbooked calendar and the flare-up of a chronic malady, I find myself moving much more slowly, and feel much less “productive” than I like. Everything in my training and upbringing has been calibrated to the old Isaac Watts verse, “How doth the busy little bee improve each shining hour…” Yet that is not my speed in these first days of summer. I am moving very slowly. So I was very cheered when I saw a sign for drivers in another state where there are significant turtle populations saying, “Slow down for the turtles,” warning drivers to be mindful of those creatures along the highways who are moving very slowly to fulfill their purpose in being alive. This afternoon we were reading in Chet Raymo’s artful and provocative book, Natural Prayers, (Hungry Mind Press, 1999), about his observation of a female leatherback turtle in the process of laying eggs:

Pluck and patience. Necessary virtues if one is going to watch turtles.No other creature so big moves and acts with such deliberation…it is the intimacy of another age, a slower, more patient age, an age willing to wait for a month, or a hundred million years, if necessary, for something to happen. (97)

Maybe The Holy One has use for a slow-going creature like me this summer, one that is not operating at the speed she used to, not even keeping up with an agenda she used to set for herself. I am greatly heartened to read the compelling book by Christopher Smith and John Pattison, called Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus and Smith’s subsequent book, Reading for the Common Good. These reflections help me to re-calibrate my “busy bee” expectations, and to accept and to honor the speed at which I am able to go, against the adrenaline and speed driven agendas of many of the surrounding cultures, including mine. Instantaneous reactions and warp speed may be the prevailing currency of the those systems around me, but my body and spirit are not able, maybe not even longing, to keep up. Smith reminds me of transformations and learnings that can only happen at “turtle” speed.

When I look at the sacred text, the only reference to slowness of the Holy One is a slowness to anger, and surely that must be something very important for me to cultivate in this season of slowness. Again, the culture of tweets and Instagram encourage quick shooting from the hip of bile and vitriol, but that does not seem to be what an imitation of Jesus is about…maybe I need the space to slow down my reaction time, to be more judicious and spacious and grace-filled in my responses.

I am also reminded of Teilhard de Chardin’s wonderful charge:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God…it is the law of progress that it is made bypassing through some stages of inability, and that may take a very long time…Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser. Amen.

In these “turtle days” of summer, I am presuming to trust in the slow work of God!

Every person’s death and loss diminishes me, according to John Donne. But the closer geographically it gets to me, the more I feel the oppressive and opaque weight of that shadow. This past week the gun violence was on my turf–my alma mater, with my extended family member enrolled; the neighborhood where I worship, shop and meet people for lunch; and the car of the shooter, located less than a mile from my house on a route that I travel frequently. The shadows feel ominous.

There are other shadows in my valley: people I love are struggling with illness and limitation; others I love are frustrated by the impenetrable job market; some suffer from lack of sufficient resources for what they need. Some of us are in the long, slow process of letting go of one who has died, another loop in the valley of the shadow of death. In addition to the personal shadow, there are the billowing clouds of the tenor of public discourse around the country is full of blame, accusation, and lack of charity.

So when the Psalmist in #23 names the “Valley of the Shadow” of death–of persons, of hopes, of dreams–I know whereof the poet speaks. The challenge is how to walk it. I have found just in the amount of time that it has taken me to actually get this blog written that the walk in the valley of the shadow is very slow. Grieving and letting go cannot be rushed, nor can I move too quickly in my body and heart to what I deeply believe, that all will be well. I need to silence the voices that yell from the back of the heart, “Are we there yet?” and listen for the voice of the Shepherd who promises that love contains no fear, and that there is a rod and a staff gentling me into comfort on the way to the table of peace and plenty.

“Rods and staffs” are not obvious in my daily rounds, so I am trying to attend to the ways the Holy is present in symbols that are easily accessible to me. Memories of the gifts I have been given in the ones and happenings that are now lost often comfort me; they are gifts of God. This person showed me a road not taken; that phone conversation invited me to listen in a new way for a sacred Word; that encounter, as brief as it was, became an “aha” moment, and though there was no more than that “brief shining moment,” it was a game changer.

The “rod and the staff”frequently show up in others who are walking this same valley. Even though the journey is my own, my fears are lessened when I encounter someone else whose sorrow is the same or who has walked this valley before. I am not looking for answers or solutions, but rather for open hearts and compassionate listening.

And I feel balm for my wounded soul in the words in sacred text–in Scripture, song, wisdom–that is embedded in me from my youth: It is Well With My Soul; We Rest on Thee, Our Shield and Our Defender. From Isaiah, “I have called you by name.” From Psalm 139, “My darkness is not dark to you.” From I John, “Love contains no fear.”

And so the winding, opaque way through the valley of the shadow goes ever on, and I am accompanied by the Presence that I cannot see or always apprehend, but that I count on. That Presence keeps me from despair, because a “way is being made where there is no way.”

I would love to have the June gloom that is covering Southern California lifted soon, both where I live and in my soul trudging this valley of the shadow. However, I am confident that Light and Darkness co-exist, and that when the time is right, I will burst out into the clearing where I will once again dine and laugh and revel at the table, where cups are running over with love and joy.